Glenbrook High School District #225 joined hundreds of school districts across the nation in suing social media companies Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram; Snap Inc., parent company of Snapchat; ByteDance, parent company of TikTok; and Google, parent company of YouTube. The school board approved the district joining the lawsuit on Oct. 10.

“These companies have purposely created addicting environments, targeting students of school age, so for us, high school age,” said deputy superintendent R.J. Gravel. “And as a result of that addiction, schools have experienced an increasing responsibility, which certainly has associated expenses for assisting students through those addictions.”

The district decided to pursue the litigation after noticing an increase in student use of social media and its impacts on the student body.

“This is a question of duty,” said Peter Ormerod, assistant professor of law at Northern Illinois University. “Do the social media companies owe a duty of care to the adolescents and do they owe a duty of care to the school district? That is a deeply contested issue that has not been resolved and is going to be where a lot of the action occurs.”

Torch received a response to an interview request about the lawsuit from Snap spokesperson Ashley Adams which stated in part, “We aren’t an app that encourages perfection or popularity, and we vet all content before it can reach a large audience, which helps protect against the promotion and discovery of potentially harmful material. While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping friends feel connected, informed, happy, and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence.”

ByteDance, Google and Meta did not respond to repeated email and phone requests for interviews. 

Gravel hopes, at a minimum, the lawsuit will lead social media companies to change algorithms to treat users under the age of 18 differently than individuals who are in adulthood to decrease the amount of lures and the level of addiction that takes place, he said.

If the district were to benefit monetarily from the litigation, it would aim to provide more services for students dealing with problems related to social media use, Gravel said. 

The district provides mental health support at the Glenbrook Health Center and access to social workers and psychologists for all students.

“Ultimately, when students have the ability to engage and interact with one another, there’s going to be goodand there’s going to be challenges, and the pervasive nature of the social media tools that we have today is that you are always on,” said Gravel. “There’s never a true opportunity where you’re truly disconnecting and stepping aside.”